


medication

by aspynjett



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bottom Harry, Eventual Smut, Everyone has a secret, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Harry Plays The Piano, Harry has a secret, M/M, Minor Character Death, Music, Recreational Drug Use, Top Louis, and niall is always great comedic relief, harry is a transfer music student, he just does stupid things occasionally without thinking, lilo becomes a thing too, louis has a secret, louis is a senior music student, louis plays the drums, no matter what love zayn because he's harmless, the minor character death plays a big part in the story though, there is some serious zouis bro moments, they're in boston
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:40:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5248574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspynjett/pseuds/aspynjett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry sees the world through the keys of a piano and has since he was sixteen. Louis sees the world through the haze of a terrible night that will always be glued to his mind. When Harry transfers to Boston University as a sophomore music student, Louis sees someone who can make that hazy night into something beautiful by combing the beat of a drum, two hearts, and a few keys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! i'm new to ao3, literally brand new. i've always wanted to get into this scene and i'm so excited to begin my journey!!! i love love love feedback more than anything, so please feel free to give me all the feedback. 
> 
> xoxo.

Dr. Howard,

For three years, I’ve been coming to your practice, off and on. Some weeks, I’d be fed up with all the bullshit you fed me about “it’s easier to just forget,” then some weeks, I’d understand why you told me that in the first place. Because it is easier to just forget. 

I always said going to a counselor was a complete waste of my mum’s money and that counselors just wanted to con off people and get them to feel things that they didn’t even feel before they came to the office. I was wrong. Dr. Howard, you didn’t make me feel things that weren’t there, you made me accept the things that had already been there. You didn’t give me a choice. The process of rediscovering myself made me feel numb, number than I was before I came. For quite a while, I’ve hated everyone, everything really. Living each day just didn’t make sense if she couldn’t be here. I had to live with the guilt that I was still alive and it was eating me to the bone. 

Then I met him.

You told me to find my muse, my inspiration, my remedy, my personal medication. He came unexpectedly. He came during a time when I wasn’t looking for inspiration or medication. Though I wasn’t looking for it didn’t mean I didn’t desperately need it.

I fought him at first, telling him that I was no good for him, but then I broke. And when I broke, my healing process began. He healed my broken heart with his words of love. He replaced my tears with his own. He fought my battles with his tongue. He soothed my mind with his tender kisses.

I want to tell you about him because your other patients need to know that you can’t find the perfect remedy in a bottle, but rather in a person. You find your own medicine in their mind, in their heart, and in their soul. Underneath the medicine though, you find home. You find peace. You find anger. You find tears. You find love. This medication will not make calm. This medication will drive you to the brink of your insanity. This medication will test you and fight you, but bring you back in their arms with tender love and sweet words. And just like that, you’re instantly healed.

Dr. Howard, you wanted to me to keep a journal, but he speaks words that belong in a book, so that’s what I’m going to write you instead. I’m going to write you a book about this beautiful brunette boy with long curly locks, a goofy smile, and a heart of gold that healed my black one within seconds of meeting him.

Sincerely, 

Louis


	2. chapter one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry sees the world through the keys of a piano and has since he was sixteen. Louis sees the world through the haze of a terrible night that will always be glued to his mind. When Harry transfers to Boston University as a sophomore music student, Louis sees someone who can make that hazy night into something beautiful by combing the beat of a drum, two hearts, and a few keys.

Music theory was a terrible way to start the fall semester and most especially, my week. I knew putting music theory at 9:25 AM on Mondays was possibly the stupidest decision of my life as soon as I did it. Actually, no, the stupidest decision was not taking it my freshman year and putting it off until my senior year. That was pure stupidity.

Professor Lawley is mumbling through his lecture about time signatures. “In two four, there are two beats. Three four, three beats. Five four, five beats.” I knew this stuff already or I wouldn’t be a music major. If you can play an instrument, you should know this kind of shit, so why am I required to take this class? Lucky for me I sit in the back of the class so it wasn’t obvious if I took an occasional look at my phone. _10:38 AM_. Only two more minutes until Lawley was required to let us leave.

I tap my fingers on my desk, long enough to last two minutes. I watch as the clock on my phone changes from 10:39 to 10:40. The second it changes, I hop up from my chair and walk right out of the door. If there is anything important, I’m sure Liam will tell me eventually, but right now, I need to practice. I need to set myself apart from the university and the music program for just a split second. After a month long dry spell, I can hear beats in my head again. There is this one particular rhythm that I am absolutely dying to lay down on a set. 

I make my way down two flights of stairs in the COFA, approaching the bottom floor with a sigh of relief. I really need to start running again because I can feel my body molding itself out of any shape it was in to begin with. Maybe I should really just lay off the pizza.

I open the brown doors to the practice rooms and my mind is absolutely buzzing with rhythms. I can literally hear the _badumtsktskdum_ in my head, playing itself over and over again, making sure that I have the pattern down to a definite tee. I walk into the first practice room with a drum set I see. My hands are jittering and I know I’m finally feeling something again. I know that whatever I’m about to play will be wicked because right before I do something good, my heart starts pounding, my forehead gets a little sweaty, and my hands start shaking. It’s not nerves though. It’s adrenaline pumping through me. I’ve never been nervous before, ever, and I don’t plan to start any time soon. Nervousness is for babies.

I sit down on the round black stool and mess with the screws underneath it for a few minutes, adjusting it perfectly to my size. Fuck being short. At least I fit comfortably behind a seat unlike the usual lanky drummers. I grab my black sticks out of my backpack and rub them together for good luck, saying a quick prayer to myself before I begin slowly and steadily, stepping quarters on the base pedal, hearing a loud and continuous thud resonate throughout the width of the practice room.

My teeth somehow find their way onto my lip, digging in enough to make the chapped skin bleed just a hare. I search for my perfect _badum_ sound, hitting the rim of the snare, just enough for it to give me quick shot, and stomping on the base pedal, getting a solid _dum_. _Badum, badum, badum, badum_ , I play over and over until it sounds perfectly in sync with the pattern in my head.

_Tsktsk, tsktsk_ , I play, tapping the edge of the hi-hat as I hold the pedal down and release it abruptly, obtaining the perfect high pitched _tsk_ sound. I smile to myself and then advert my focus to the two toms in front of me. When I was younger and just learning how to play a set, my gramps used to tell me we got our last name from the toms. I try to hold back a laugh in spite of my seriousness. I tap the one on the left. _Bummm_ is what I hear, the deepening sound vibrating through my body and nope, I don’t like it, too low for my perfect pattern. I tap the one of the right. _Dum_ , perfect.

I make my way from the snare to the base pedal, tapping and releasing the hi-hat nicely, and ending perfectly with a swift shot on the right tom. _Badumtsktskdum, badumtsktskdum, badumtsktskdum_ , I play repetitively, feeling proud of myself after months of silence, months of anger. After a good five minutes of playing the pattern again and again, I feel a cloud of discouragement hover above me. I literally have nothing else to add with this rhythm. It was a pattern consisting of five notes, that’s it. I actually want to cry right now or maybe scream. Depends on which one my mom doesn’t mind hearing today when I ring her later.

I pack my sticks in my bag as a drop of frustration falls from my brow to the floor. I throw my black backpack on my back and push my way out of the practice room terribly angry at myself. I pull my phone out of my pocket and go through any type of feed, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, something that will get my mind off my lack of inspiration.

In the midst of my frantic media searching, I run into something. Hard. Really hard. Hard enough my shoulder goes back as my body moves forward and my backpack slings itself off my shoulder. I turn around and look at the person I ran into. “Watch where you’re going. What are you? Fucking blind?”

I turn away from the guy and begin walking toward the exit of COFA. “Yeah, actually I am. Do you mind coming back and picking up these papers I dropped for me,” I hear a voice say from behind me. I stop where I’m at. This person can’t be serious. Of fucking course, the one time I decide to make a blind slur, the person ends up being blind.

I contemplate whether I should keep walking or turn around and help the person out. If my mom knew I kept walking, she would kill me. She would never ever speak to me ever again. My conscience starts to beat me up and I let out a sigh of defeat, turning around to go pick up these damn papers.

When I turn around, I don’t expect to see a tall, lanky boy with long, curly brown hair. I don’t expect to see a smile on his face after I was just the hugest dick to him. I don’t expect to see dimples poking out the side of his face. Shit, I don’t even expect to see eyes if he’s actually blind, but there they are, looking like perfect, peaceful green emeralds. There’s this beautiful blind boy in front of me and I expected to see fucking Stevie Wonder.

“Are you going to pick up my papers or not? Sheesh, you’re probably not even standing there and I look stupid talking to thin air,” he says with a sigh, rubbing his forehead and running his fingers through his long hair. I stumble my way over to the papers on the floor and quickly pick them up. I look at them curiously once they’re all in my hands and notice they’re all in Braille. This guy wasn’t lying about being blind at all. “Okay yeah, you’re still there. I can hear you. I’m going to hold my hand out and you just kind of lay the papers there, alright?”

I mumbled out an unsteady, “Alright,” because my breath is hitched in my throat. I carefully lay the papers in his hand, making sure one doesn’t so happen to slip out until he fully has his hands around them. Shit, shit, _shit_ , his hands are huge. “There ya go.”

“Thanks, man, I appreciate it,” he says with a smile and my god, that’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen on a boy. “And no harsh feelings on the blind comment either. Sometimes I forget I am and then I run into people and it kind of reminds me that I don’t see things like other people.”

I nod my head, as if I’m verifying it to myself that he doesn’t hate me for my comment. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. It’s been a rough day and you just caught me in a moment of vulnerability, that’s all.”

He lets out a small laugh. “Trust me, I understand. Today’s my first day on this campus and for a blind person, having to relearn your whereabouts is not fun, especially when your professors aren’t aware of your disabilities and get angry at you for being late.” He takes in a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m ranting. I’m Harry, by the way,” he says, letting his smile flash in my direction. He places his hand in front of him, reaching out toward me.

I do the same in return and shake his hand, “I’m Louis. If you need me to point you in a direction or something, I can help.” I feel bad for the guy. This can’t be an easy task and I feel a pang of anger twitching in me at the mention of his professors being absolute shit to him.

He shakes his head, his curls flopping around his face. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll remember it better if I figure it out myself honestly, but thank you, Louis. I appreciate it.” I try not to let my face soften at the way he says my name, but my body decides it wants to do something differently. “Well, I suppose I need to head off if I’m going to get any practice hours in today. Nice meeting you, Louis.”

“See you around, Harry,” I say and I immediately want to hit myself in the face as I turn around and walk out the door. _See you around?_ What kind of half-ass departing comment is that? I shake my head, trying to clear it of anything else stupid I might possibly say. 

As I walk down the street, I pull my phone back out and send Liam a quick text.

**invite zayn over to the apartment later, wanna have a few drinks and smokes**

_alright, do you want me to go pick up a few beers? we barely have any_

**nah just tell zayn to bring some and i’ll pay him back later**

_is it alright if we have lady friends over_

**of course it is payno, but be a good boy and don’t do anything in our apartment you wouldn’t do in your mom’s home**

_wellll_

**be home in thirty**

The traffic in Boston today is absolutely terrible, especially for a pedestrian like myself. It’s sending my head into a whirl. I don’t know what I need to do to get my mind off of the world around me, but somehow my thoughts trail off to something else, someone who isn’t her. For once, my mind isn’t flooded with guilt and hurt and anger. It’s overwhelmed with the green eyes and dimpled smile from the brunette boy from earlier.

If I were him and someone had the audacity to make the comment I made to him, I would freak the fuck out immediately, let some words, and maybe even the occasional fist, fly freely. But he, he handled it in the most serene manner and it’s taking me by shock right now because someone who has this disability shouldn’t be okay with that kind of treatment. That must mean people are like that to him all the time. How can someone be so cruel to such a beautiful boy?

_Ask yourself, Louis, you were a complete ass to him_ , I hear her mimic me in the back of my head. I need a smoke. I need tonight. I need a few drinks and blunts with Liam and Zayn and then I’ll be set. My mind will be clear of her and Harry. Maybe after tonight, I won’t even remember his name. It’s not like I’ll actually see him again. Boston U is a very big place and since my passion for drumming isn’t exactly exploding, it’s not like I’ll be in COFA very much anyways.

After I put my headphones in, I arrive at mine and Liam’s shared apartment in no time. Okay, here’s the super mega wicked cool backstory behind me and Payno. He was a completely loser freshman year and I was loving the party scene. Somehow, the two of us got paired as roommates. I hated him. He was (still is) a vocal student because let’s face it, Payno has the most impeccable voice I’ve ever heard. Because he was a vocal student, we were taking all the same classes, which meant I had to see him literally every waking hour and I couldn’t stand it, mostly because we would take the same tests and study the same amount of time, together ever, and he would ace the damn thing while I barely managed to get an 84. Sophomore came around and I told him, “Hell no. I hate you. You’re boring. You’re a prude and we’re not rooming together.” So, sophomore year, we parted ways, but I had to admit, I missed getting a rise out of him occasionally, so when our paths crossed at the end of our sophomore year at a required music recital, we both decided we couldn’t not be roommates. That brings us to senior year. Liam’s grown up a bit and I’ve stayed the same. Somehow it’s managed it work and he’s my best friend to this day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When I walk into the apartment, I can hear Liam singing some Timberlake tune. Him and his damn pop songs. “Payno, I smell pizza and tea. Please tell me this is you not being a shit roommate for once,” I ask as I walk into the kitchen. 

“You’re full of shit if you think this tea or pizza is for you. Zayn requested pizza and the tea is for my vocal chords. Should’ve told me you wanted tea and I would’ve grabbed you some on the way here.” Liam looks at me, smirking over his tea. “So, how did music theory treat you this morning?”

I groan, letting him know music theory was the last thing I wanted to talk about. “I’m an idiot for making it my only class on Mondays. I’m even more stupid for putting it at 9:25 AM. And I reached the brink of my stupidity when I didn’t take it my freshman year.” I pull one of the stools out from underneath the counter and sit down. “Isn’t there a CLEP test I can take for it? I already know everything there is to know about theory.”

“Then you should be able to pass it no problem, Louis. Easy A, isn’t that what you said when you registered?” Liam turns his back to me and I know he did it so he could let out a slight chuckle without me seeing. “Anything else interesting happen in your day?”

It was like he knew I shouted slurs at a blind guy today. “Nope, nothing,” I lie, not wanting to admit that to Liam. If I thought my mom would go crazy about what I said to Harry, I knew Liam would be absolutely insane about it, telling me I was full of shit and a terrible human. Liam’s too nice for his own good sometime. “What time is Zayn getting here?’

“I think in a few minutes actually. He wanted to know if it was okay if he brought someone here to study because his place is piled high in boxes right.” Liam turns back around to me with an apple in his hand. He attempts to continue talking while chomping away on an apple slice, “I didn’t bother asking you because I figured you go lock yourself in your room and scream about your loss of inspiration.”

“Haha, very funny, Liam,” I say, reaching over and snatching the apple out of his hand, taking a bite and hopping down from the stool. “He’s bringing the weed and beer, right? That’s all I’m concerned about really.”

Liam rolls his eyes, “Of course, Louis.” I walk out the kitchen and into our small living room, plopping down on the couch. I can feel Liam walking behind me and when I look up from the couch, he’s standing there. “Louis, I’m worried about you, man, and I just want you to know that if you ever feel the need to rant or scream or cry, you can come to me. That’s what I’m here for.”

“I’m fine, Payno. Just get me a few intoxicants and I might cuddle you to death, if that’s what will give you reassurance about my mental stability.” I’m not fine. I haven’t been fine for a while. Liam knows that. He knows everything. No matter how hard I try to cover it up, Liam finds a way to read it me and it’s fucking unfair when I want to keep things to myself.

Liam goes to say something and then there’s a knock on the door. “It’s me. Open up, you losers,” we hear Zayn say from the other side of the door. I don’t bother turning around to face the door and watch as Zayn walks in. I know what Zayn looks like. No need for me to divert my attention to him.

I hear Liam in the background talking to Zayn and his friend. “Hi, I’m Liam. I’ll take your jacket for you. I’m going to set it on the bench to your right, if that’s okay with you. Just kinda feel for that bench there, would ya? Um, Zayn? Are you guys going to study in the kitchen or in the living room?” “Living room.” “Alright then, just follow me in here. I’ll lead you to the couch. You can just kind of feel your way around there too, if that’s what you want to do. Yeah, yeah, here’s the couch.” _Plump_. “There you go.”

I look next to me and I think I feel my insides turning upside down inside of me. There are those beautiful green eyes from earlier staring straight into my blue ones. And then I mutter out _what the actual fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter one. please tell me what you think. i'm so excited for this. so so so excited.
> 
> xoxo.


End file.
